Unfinished Spaces

Product Description

The Cuban National Art Schools defy stereotypes about Cuban culture and history. The designs are sensual, but they are also roughly textured and formidable. The structures are decaying - like so many buildings on the island - but they are also brimming with life - like the artists whose work has come of age within them for the last half-century. Likewise, the Cuban National Art Schools evade definitions of modernism in architecture. The low-lying, fluid communication between interior and exterior spaces makes the schools distinct from Corbusian 'towers in the park.' Grand gestures, such as the thirty-meter dome spanning across Garatti's School of Ballet, distinguish the schools from the small-scale organic masterpieces of Frank Lloyd Wright. When filming the Cuban National Art Schools and the architects who designed them, we knew that Unfinished Spaces needed an original score that would similarly defy musical genres. It needed to echo indigenous Cuban and avant-garde Modern music, but not fit neatly into either category. We began working with Giancarlo Vulcano during the earliest stages of the editing process, and immediately, Giancarlo understood our vision. He has been able to capture in his music the larger-than-life era of the Cuban Revolution, when anything seemed possible in art and in life. With equal passion, his score embodies the heartache of that dream being shattered by the harsh politics of the Cold War. From the excess of Havana nightlife under Batista's regime, to the irony of Fidel Castro playing a game of golf with Che Guevara, to the quietude of spiderwebs and plants devouring bricks, Giancarlo's music animates parts of Cuba that have otherwise remained in the shadows. The music ebbs and flows with the characters in the film, allowing others to share their joys and disappointments, which are also the triumphs and tragedies of Cuba's utopian visions and everyday realities.

The Cuban National Art Schools defy stereotypes about Cuban culture and history. The designs are sensual, but they are also roughly textured and formidable. The structures are decaying - like so many buildings on the island - but they are also brimming with life - like the artists whose work has come of age within them for the last half-century. Likewise, the Cuban National Art Schools evade definitions of modernism in architecture. The low-lying, fluid communication between interior and exterior spaces makes the schools distinct from Corbusian 'towers in the park.' Grand gestures, such as the thirty-meter dome spanning across Garatti's School of Ballet, distinguish the schools from the small-scale organic masterpieces of Frank Lloyd Wright. When filming the Cuban National Art Schools and the architects who designed them, we knew that Unfinished Spaces needed an original score that would similarly defy musical genres. It needed to echo indigenous Cuban and avant-garde Modern music, but not fit neatly into either category. We began working with Giancarlo Vulcano during the earliest stages of the editing process, and immediately, Giancarlo understood our vision. He has been able to capture in his music the larger-than-life era of the Cuban Revolution, when anything seemed possible in art and in life. With equal passion, his score embodies the heartache of that dream being shattered by the harsh politics of the Cold War. From the excess of Havana nightlife under Batista's regime, to the irony of Fidel Castro playing a game of golf with Che Guevara, to the quietude of spiderwebs and plants devouring bricks, Giancarlo's music animates parts of Cuba that have otherwise remained in the shadows. The music ebbs and flows with the characters in the film, allowing others to share their joys and disappointments, which are also the triumphs and tragedies of Cuba's utopian visions and everyday realities.